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Consumerism

As someone whose sometimes retreats from reality into various fantasy role playing games, I was really intrigued with the insight that one of the things that american consumerism has stripped us of is a sense of history, there is only the present and the push to buy more stuff, which then usually gets shoved in the closet.

The author also points to The all consuming century, why consumerism won in modern america. I've found the first 20% of that book quite interesting as the writer traces the development of consumerism as a way of allowing people to experiment with new identities and to cut across class and ethnic lines to form a democratic society.

Later chapters look to address the loss of relationships and meaning that has accompanied the superficial culture created by consumerism.

(no subject)

That was the authors words, I might interpret it as consumerism provides a way for recent immigrants to at least superficially assimilate into the dominate culture relatively easily.

One of the (more positive sounding to me) examples was that of the Jews who moved to the US from European ghettoes, who used consumerism to superficially assimilate while still maintaining their inner cultural traditions at home.

The author also is trying to show how consumerism managed to weaken the formation of any type of class consciousness.

(no subject)

i understood that it was the author's argument, not yours. i still think it's disingenuous. i would strongly disagree with their example of jewish assimilation through consumerism. i'm not sure what they mean by: "how consumerism managed to weaken the formation of any type of class consciousness".